Relay Ventures Raises $150 Million Third Fund
Relay Ventures today announced Relay Ventures III, a new US$150 million venture capital fund focused on early-stage investments in mobile software, services, content, and technology startups in Canada and the United States.
Relay Ventures is the largest private early-stage fund manager in Canada with an exclusive focus on mobile and limited Partners in the new fund include: Northleaf Capital Partners, Kensington Capital Partners, Generation Capital, La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, EDC, AEC, and Royal Bank of Canada.
While raising the new fund, Relay Ventures concurrently invested in several startups across the continent.
Among the portfolio companies that have received investments from Relay Ventures III are: Kelowna-based FreshGrade, which provides classroom communication and assessments for K-12 education; 7shifts, a Saskatoon-based startup that provides workforce scheduling solutions for the restaurant industry; Artificial Intelligence (AI) messaging and bot company Automat.ai based in Montreal; wellness rewards and loyalty startup Carrot Insights in Toronto; Kwik Commerce, the Sunnyvale and Tel-Aviv based one-touch commerce company; and UJet, a next generation mobile-first customer service technology company based in San Francisco.
“Canada has extremely talented entrepreneurs and best-in-class start-ups,” said Kevin Talbot, co-founder and managing partner of Relay Ventures.
“And while not every company has to be located in Silicon Valley, we believe that Silicon Valley needs to be in every start-up. This is Relay’s differentiation, the rationale behind our full-time team in Silicon Valley, and why our entrepreneurs describe us as a top tier venture investor. It’s an anchor in our strategy that will continue with this new fund.”
Over the last eight years the Fund has maintained an exclusive focus on mobile and today 1 in 2 smartphones in the world run software from Relay portfolio companies.
